Bibliometric and Visualization Analysis of Human Coronaviruses: Prospects and Implications for COVID-19 Research

Abstract

Human coronaviruses, which can cause a range of infectious diseases, have been studied for nearly 60 years. The field has gained renewed interest from researchers around the world due to the COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019. Despite a large amount of research, little is known about the knowledge structure and developing trends of this topic. Here, we apply bibliometric analysis along with visualization tools to analyze 15,207 publications related to human coronavirus from the Scopus database, using indicators on publication and citation, journal, country or territory, affiliation and international cooperation, author, and keyword co-occurrence cluster. The results show that research on human coronavirus is dominated by SARS-CoV. Although there have been many publications, only 626 publications (4.1% of total) have more than 100 citations. The top 20 journals with most publications account for 20.6% of total publications and 41% of total citations. In addition to the United States and some European countries, many Asian and African countries are involved in this research, with China holding an important position in this area. Leading researchers from various fields of human coronavirus research are listed to facilitate collaboration and promote effective disease prevention and control. The keywords co-occurrence analysis reveals that the research focus on virology, public health, drugs and other hotspot fields, and uncovers changes in the direction of coronavirus research. The research map on human coronavirus obtained by our analysis are expected to help researchers to efficiently and effectively explore COVID-19.

Visualizing the knowledge outburst in global research on COVID-19

“…They mapped and compared the publication dataset covered in Web of Science (core collection) from 2001 to 2020. Deng et al ( 2020 ) examined more than 15,000 publications (in English and Chinese) related to ‘human coronaviruses’ as indexed in Scopus for a period from 1960 until 15 February 2020. Their study was intended to provide information about the pathogen as a whole (but not limited to the new coronavirus) keeping in view to map the previous research in this field.…”

“…4 . Deng et al ( 2020 ) also viewed that USA, China and UK are the three prominent players of international cooperation in the human coronavirus research. In a similar way, peer-group of institutions may be identified within a country.…”

Current global research landscape on COVID-19 and depressive disorders: Bibliometric and visualization analysis

“…To date, there is not a bibliometric study assessing depression research and COVID-19 at the global level. In several studies in virology[ 17 - 22 ], more specifically on the COVID-19 outbreak[ 23 - 29 ], bibliometric analysis means evaluating the research output of authors, countries, journals, and institutions[ 30 , 31 ]. Capturing the relevant literature is essential and promotes the comprehension of a particular focus area's characteristics and patterns.…”

Mapping Trends and Hotspots Regarding Clinical Research on COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research

“…Based on the bibliometric study of the literature and preprint articles on COVID-19, El Hawary et al ( 11 ), and Kambhampati et al ( 12 ), among others, comprehensively analyzed the subjects, authors, and nationalities of COVID-19-related articles published 3 months before the declaration of the pandemic. Similarly, Odone et al ( 13 ) and Deng et al ( 14 ), among others, have been distinguishing the main branches, authors, journals, and collaborative links of COVID-19 articles since December 2019. However, to the knowledge of the authors, there is no bibliometric analysis specifically focusing on COVID-19 clinical studies.…”